Payroll Software Implementations

Given the wide-sweeping nature of the technology, implementing payroll systems can be a trying task; introducing both technology risk and human or behavioral risk associated with changing roles and norms within the company culture. Aside from monitoring the performance of the payroll system itself, organizations must also manage the expectations of employees and stakeholders. Effective change management practices are needed to handle the variance, diversity, and adversity that users bring to the process; as is the understanding that mismanaged implementations will introduce delays, increase costs and affect outcomes.

Featured Payroll Software Implementation Articles

Implementing a new payroll software application with self-service features can be rife with issues and can lead to painfully low adoption rates, reduced time to value, and an unacceptable ROI. However, by employing the tactics of listening, encouragement, communication, and measurement, businesses considering self-service payroll deployment can greatly reduce those problems.

Successfully implementing a new payroll application requires concerted effort on the parts of training and engaging system users as well as testing of the software to ensure that no mistakes are present. In this post, we examine those areas and look deeper into why these factors play such an important role in the ultimate achievement of an acceptable payroll software return-on-investment.

The larger the scale of the software implementation, the more important properly-focused training is. For a payroll system, a full training strategy is advised, aligned to the desired business outcomes and including varied bespoke programs according to stakeholder level, role and learning needs. Here, we outline our quick 6-step strategy for that training.

The implementation phase for payroll software is often where the most unpredictable elements can come into play—throwing off go-live schedules and sending project budget rocketing skywards. By taking these 4 issues into account though (and taking timely preventative action), the budget can be reined in and kept within the original estimate.

While the “people factor” is the keystone to success (or failure) for any project, it’s especially important for payroll software projects due to the impact the system will invariably have. With careful and early mapping of stakeholder groups though, a detailed strategy can be formulated that will lead to a payroll implementation that is both on-budget and on-schedule.

With over 50% of software projects failing to realize the expected benefits, a payroll software implementation cannot afford to leave anything to chance. One of the least predictable factors is workforce response to change. This article offers a systematic approach to effectively manage this response and fully engage employees in your new payroll system’s success.

Implementing a new payroll solution can be a demanding technical challenge, but that challenge can largely be tackled out of sight and behind-the-scenes with the help of subject matter experts. The reaction of employees (at all levels) to the incoming system though, is far less of a private ordeal; and arguably has a far greater impact on implementation success. This special report looks at the key “people” elements of a payroll software implementation project; including stakeholder analysis, change management, training, and the engagement of external consultants.